Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Are we heading towards a socialistic/ communist form of governance / economy now? With bailouts we would see governments’ involvement in running varie

In reply to a debate on Linked in, http://www.linkedin.com/answers?viewQuestion=&questionID=407839&askerID=6067402&browseIdx=0&sik=1233147316767&goback=%2Easr_1_1233147316767&report%2Esuccess=vfLh7ZiQxNtkwQoO3efsNN1zAgQ8WXmCT24lKBBmlHq_pfcN7JydQUoVP_zdv4b8

Disagree.The current crisis shouldnot be seen as fall of capitalism. Capitalism idealogically is more than just "GREED".Nothing lasts infinity. Not even greed. That is as far as i understand the current meltdown. There can be no mastery over risk and no escaping the economic/business cycles.Common sense prevailed over bubble optimism with this burst. No mortage was too absurd, no leverage too great, no structured product too reckess when risk spreading models were so brilliantly engineered. Thats a conception which has been blown away. The business cyle is real. There is a very real relation between supply and demand. You cant sustain a market based on lending when the borrowers dont have the resources to pay back the loans. Thats pretty basic. Misadventures against these axiomatic truthisms is what we pay for.AND YET THAT IS NOT THE FALL OF CAPITALISM!In spirit Capitalism is free enterprise. While 1929 saw a meltdown which was as bad or even worse, that didnot end capitalism. Entrepreneurial endeavours and capitalsim made the world the way it is in terms of achievements despite 13 depressions since 1929. As far as, the state control on business is concerned, Keynes or any other economist didnot limit themselves by saying the government cannot limit itself to being a stakeholder in Capitalsit economies. I wholly agree that presently the government is the only crutch failing banks and businesses are holding on to.Well that is the result of slack governance on the part of the state in the corporate sector. It appears that the US economy didnot learn from its Enron and WorldCom and was waiting for Lehmann brothers to happen.From the sweat shop in Burma to the clouds in the web world and heavy machines, i see capitalist endeavour everywhere. The state has played its part by picking up a 1 trillion dollar penalty for not roping in GREED. Thus i again make the point, Capitalism is one thing, Greed is another.